Got a sweet tooth? Think twice before picking up a Mars candy bar!
You should know that candymaker Mars, Inc.—creator of M&M's,
Snickers, Twix, Dove, Three Musketeers, Starburst, Skittles, and other
candies—funds deadly animal tests, even though there are more
reliable human studies and not one of the tests is required by law.
Mars recently funded a deadly experiment on rats to determine the
effects of chocolate ingredients on their blood vessels. Experimenters
force-fed the rats by shoving plastic tubes down their throats and
then cut open the rats' legs to expose an artery, which was clamped
shut to block blood flow. After the experiment, the animals were
killed. Mars has also funded cruel experiments in which mice were fed
a candy ingredient and forced to swim in a pool of a water mixed with
white paint. The mice had to find a hidden platform to avoid drowning,
only to be killed and dissected later on. In yet another experiment
supported by Mars, rats were fed cocoa and anesthetized with carbon
dioxide so that their blood could be collected by injecting a needle
directly into their hearts, which can lead to internal bleeding and
other deadly complications.
Mars' top competitor, Hershey's, has pledged not to fund or conduct
experiments on animals. Other major food corporations—including
Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Ocean Spray, Welch's, and POM Wonderful—have
also publicly ended animal tests after hearing from PETA.
Mars' Heartless Animal Experiments
Not one of Mars' experiments on animals is required by law. Even so,
Mars has paid experimenters to kill untold numbers of animals in
tests:
Learn more at
MarsCandyKills.com.
Mars recently funded an experiment on rats at the University of
California, San Francisco, to determine the effect of chocolate
ingredients on the animals' blood vessels, even though the
experimenter admitted that studies have already been done using
humans. Experimenters force-fed the rats by shoving plastic tubes down
their throats and then cut open the rats' legs to expose an artery,
which was clamped shut to block blood flow. After the experiment, the
animals were killed.
Mars funded a deadly experiment on mice that was published in a 2007
issue of the Journal of Neuroscience in which mice were fed flavanols
(phytochemicals that are found in chocolate) and forced to swim in a
pool of water mixed with white paint to hide a submerged platform,
which the mice had to find in order to avoid drowning, only to be
killed and dissected later on.
In one experiment supported by Mars and conducted by the current Mars,
Inc., endowed chair in developmental nutrition at the University of
California, Davis, rats were fed cocoa and anesthesized with carbon
dioxide so that blood could be collected by a needle injected directly
into the heart—a procedure criticized by U.S. Department of
Agriculture researcher Dr. William T. Golde, who notes: “This is not
a simple method. … Missing the heart or passing the needle
completely through the heart could lead to undetected internal
bleeding or other complications.”
Mars supported a cruel experiment to learn how a chocolate ingredient
called PQQ affects metabolism by cramming baby mice into
200-milliliter Plexiglas metabolic chambers—around half the size of
a 12-ounce soda can—and then submerging the chamber for nearly five
hours in a chilled water bath, inducing labored breathing in the
distressed mice. Experimenters then shoved tubes down the mice’s
throats every day for 10 days to force-feed them the PQQ, after which
they were killed and cut up for analysis.
Mars funded a test in which experimenters forced rabbits to eat a
high-cholesterol diet with varying amounts of cocoa, then cut out and
examined tissue from the rabbits' primary blood vessel to the heart to
determine the effect of cocoa on rabbits’ muscle tissue.
Mars supported a test in which experimenters attached plastic tubes to
arteries in guinea pigs' necks and injected cocoa ingredients into
their jugular veins to examine the effect of cocoa ingredients on
their blood pressure.